Rossi Satisfied

Valentino Rossi finished the Doha IRTA test in third place as he got a reminder that Dani Pedrosa is likely to pose the biggest threat to him winning back the MotoGP world crown in 2007.

Rossi’s best time of 1.55.954 on a Michelin qualifying tyre was 0.5s slower than Pedrosa’s best on soft rubber as the Spaniard started to hit peak form to set the best overall time in Qatar.

Rossi was third behind Pedrosa and John Hopkins and he said: “We have learned a lot of things that will be good for the first race. I tested a lot of things with the suspension and tyres and I am happy because I have been consistently fast on race tyres, so this means we will be competitive in three weeks for the first race.”

He completed a full race simulation but had been tempted to abort when he started to suffer rear Michelin tyre problems. Despite his problems he still clocked 13 laps in 1.57 bracket with a best of 1.57.231, which was just 0.1s adrift of Pedrosa’s best time in his simulation.

He said: “We had some problems but I am not worried. I wanted to finish the long run to check the fuel consumption.”